Ho Chi Minh, born on May 19, 1890 as Nguyen Tat Thanh, was a Vietnamese revolutionary who imposed one-party rule on North Vietnam, dashing any hopes of it becoming a democraticcountry. He was prime minister of the Viet Minh, a communist proto-state, from 1945 to 1955. The Viet Minh became the government of North Vietnam in 1954. Ho became president in 1955 and held this position until death on September 2, 1969. Ho was more a figurehead than a leader. Although Le Duan, the party boss, maintained a lower profile, he was a more powerful leader. "Ho" is a surname while "Chi Minh" means "the one who brings light." Vietnamese generally call him Bác Hồ (Uncle Ho). This phrase was coined in imitation of "Uncle Joe," one of Stalin's nicknames. Official propaganda stresses that Ho was celibate and dedicated only to welfare of the nation. Few Vietnamese are aware that he was married to Tang Tuyet Minh, a ChineseCatholic who lived in Guangzhou. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Life and career

Nguyen Tat Thanh left Vietnam at the age of 20. He traveled to London, New York and Paris and took different jobs (among others: worked as a ship steward, gardener, cook in a restaurant). While working on a ship he used name Nguyen Van Ba, then he returned to his original name.

Ho Chi Minh was a
nationalist in the sense that he had a special affection for Vietnam’s people and favored Vietnamese unification and independence, but, from his reading of Lenin’s Theses onward, he firmly adhered to the Leninist principle that Communist nations should subordinate their interests to those of the international Communist movement.[3]

The North Vietnamese Terror "More than 172,000 people died during the North Vietnam land reform campaign after being classified as landowners and wealthy farmers, official records of the time show. But official figures leave out summary executions of those accused of membership of the National People’s Party, however. Unofficial estimates of those killed by Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam Labor Party, which later become the Vietnamese Communist Party, range from 200,000 to 900,000. ...“The land reform campaign was a crime of genocide like that of Pol Pot,” Hao said."

"The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam," US Government Report estimates that at least half a million were killed in the north and that up to one million will be killed in the south following the Communist victory. See the rest here,here, and here. Communist Lt. Col. Chuyen states that 5 million South Vietnamese are targets for persecution and that about 500,000 will be killed--which is almost exactly what happened. When asked if fears of a bloodbath are exaggerated, he says "they could not be exaggerated. It will happen." It did happen.

Ho Chi Minh’s Land Reform: Mistake or Crime? Lam Thanh Liem, a major authority on land issues in Vietnam, concludes that the communists perpetrated a huge bloodbath and that the death toll was in the hundreds of thousands.

The Vietnamese Gulag Chilling reports of the utter despair and mass suicides that followed Communist victory in South Vietnam.